


Morholt 1

by secace



Series: Caffè Arturiano [9]
Category: Arthurian Literature - Fandom, Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, M/M, car theft, do i have to tag gringolet, im not doing that, its fade to black dont worry, its m only for dumb jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:20:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24150460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secace/pseuds/secace
Summary: “So, why is your horse called Morholt 2?” Bedivere asked curiously.“Don’t ask!” Agravaine rushed to implore him, to no avail.“Technically it’s not his. The school owns it.”The conversation went on as if Mordred had not spoke.“Well,” Gawain said, looking up from the counter he was cleaning. “After Morholt 1, obviously.”
Relationships: Gawain/Morholt (Arthurian)
Series: Caffè Arturiano [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017424
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Morholt 1

**Author's Note:**

> yes his horse is named morholt 2 and the car is named gringolet. heres why i guess? kind of

There were three people in a car, and two of them know what was happening. The other one was Morholt. Morholt did not know many things at the moment, like how he came to have the vice-captain of the cheer squad in his front seat, giving him directions, with the captain in the backseat. 

All he knew was that after the football game (they had won, go Hawks) Gawain had said something like, “Hey, mind giving me and Mallory a ride home?” or something along those lines. Whatever Gawain had said, he must have said it really, really well, because Morholt agreed no questions asked, and would moreover have agreed to a great many things at that moment up to and including donating a lung.

“Aw, fuck,” Mallory hissed next to him, scowing down as her phone. “My dad’s getting home early.”

Morholt glanced at the mirror, which he seemed to be doing a lot for some reason, for Gawain’s reaction to this information. Gawain, who was sprawled lazily across the backseat, notably not wearing a seat belt, frowned and blew out a breath. 

“Boo,” he said, leaning back against the window and crossing his legs.

“Hng,” said Morholt. Then, after a moment, “uh, damn.” 

He didn’t know why they were disappointed, but he felt he should contribute. Mallory gave him a confused sideways glance, then shrugged and looked back at her phone. 

“Whatever. Just drop me off then, I guess. It’s right up here. See you Monday, Gawain.”

“See you around.”

They let her out of the car and she darted into the house, closing the door behind her with some resentfulness.

“Do you-- want to move up to the front?” Morholt asked, with another too-long glance in the mirror.

“Do you want to move to the back?” he countered, after a painfully protracted moment of consideration. Morholt was opening the driver side door before Gawain was even done speaking, but before he could do more than unlock it, Gawain laughed and he froze.

“Right here? In a nice residential neighbourhood? Its bold, Ill grant you.”

“Fuck!” He swore and jerked the car out of park.

Gawain sat back, amusement still on his face. “It’s late and dark, just pull in somewhere secluded. Ish.”

Morholt did not answer, focusing all his remaining mental faculties on following the instructions.

“Hey, let me give you a tip,” Gawain said lightly, leaning forward to cross his arms on the back of the headrest, his mouth an inch or less from the back of Morholt’s neck. The car swerved slightly. “Don’t be overeager, you come off as unappealingly artless. Act like you’re doing me a favour.”

“Er, Okay,” Said Morholt, who hadn’t heard any word in that sentence aside from ‘come off’ but was very earnestly planning to follow that advice if he could only find someplace secluded to park the damn car.

If he was thinking straight, in any sense on the word, Morholt would have picked anywhere else, but in his defence, he thought it was a park initially. At least it was secluded, unoccupied and, most importantly, right here.

“Cemetary,” Gawain noted, with a smirk. “Nice.”

“Is it?” Morholt said, not caring about or hearing the answer. He was too busy putting the car in park, ripping out the key and tossing it on the front seat, throwing open the door and sliding into the backseat with a speed that, if demonstrated in tryouts, would have gotten him on the football team.

“Overeager,” Gawain chided lightly, and if there was a second part to that thought he did not say it, as tongue became suddenly occupied. 

When Gawain was finally dropped off at his mother’s house, it was quite late. That was fine, he said lightly, no one was staying up for him. Morholt was in a sort of haze that did not include processing any sort of meaning in those words, or wondering why Gawain called it “his mother’s house” not his. 

Morholt would not be a very good detective, he would later realize. 

But he didn’t care about the phrasing of Gawain’s statements, ignored the fact that Gawain only laughed when asked about finals, or the oddly sincere goodbyes he had made after the game. Ignored how the perpetual cloud of misery that hung over Gawain’s brothers had shifted into nervousness the last few days-- in fact, if Morholt knew Gawain had brothers he certainly didn’t care. If he had managed to put these observations together, he would have felt nothing but the resentment of future cemetery exchanges lost. He certainly would not have agreed, the next day, April 30th, to lend Gawain his car.

But Gawain said something over the phone about ‘gratitude’ and that was all it took.

“Yeah! Yeah anytime. Uh, maybe I should-- just take you on a quick drive in it, show you-- how it works.”

I know how a car works, Morholt, trust me, Gawain didn’t say. “Maybe after I return it, you can show me everything I was doing wrong.”

“Yeah!” said Morholt again, not even attempting to institute Gawain’s advice about not being overeager. “I’ll drop it off right now!”

“A block away, would you? By the gas station? It’s a really nice neighbourhood and you can’t just have cars parked on the street.”

That didn’t make a lot of sense, but Morholt did not remotely care. “Sure.”

So he dropped off the car, briefly made out with Gawain on the hood before being laughingly shoed off. He watched Gawain drive away and only then realized he had no way to get home. He got a Slurpee from the 11/7 across the street and tried to decide between walking two and a half miles and calling his dad to explain the situation which was…? Unclear to even him.

Morholt walked home. It was a nice day anyway. The next day was a nice day too, and only made miserable by the fact that he hadn’t heard from Gawain since hed dropped off the car. He reached out to his few acquaintances, mostly on the football team and cooler than him. They responded that they didn’t know, but one mentioned it was Gawain’s 18th birthday, and he was likely somewhere celebrating. 

Morholt, who erroneously believed that they were dating now, was fairly upset at being excluded from this and called Gawain immediately to passive-aggressively wish him a happy birthday. 

_ We're sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again. _

Slightly frantic, Morholt tried typing in the number by hand.

_ We're sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error-- _

He hung up, throwing the phone on his bed. Maybe Gawain got a new phone for his birthday, and it was currently in the process of being set up. That was possible, right? 

A sullen and frustrated few hours passed in the way that could be expected of a sullen and frustrated eighteen-year-old with nothing better to do, and he tried the number again.

_ We're sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or--  _ he threw his phone across the room.

Three days and exactly, though he had not counted, one hundred thirty seven repeats of the dreaded robotic message, later, Morholt decided to investigate for himself. He borrowed his father’s car and drove to where the car had been dropped off. Then, to the Orkney residence. Morholts car was not parked outside. 

Over the next several days he drove by once or twice more and finally worked up enough coiled resentment, embarrassment and prurience to knock on the front door.

All courage fled as it was answered by a tall, beautiful older woman with an expression like a honed knife. Stumblingly, he asked after Gawain.

“Gawain Orkney no longer resides at this address,” she answered evenly. “He will not be returning any time in the future. Leave the property immediately or I will call the police.”

He left immediately.

It should be made clear, that Morholt had little genuine romantic affection for the object of his attention, certainly nothing like love. He had quite a great deal of affection for Gawain’s mouth, and various other accoutrements, and he wasn’t terribly bright, so in his mind, this was a great romantic tragedy, with himself as the lovelorn but dashing lead.

The fallout involved a considerable amount of crying and other activities which involved being alone in his room and tissues. He got back to his old hobbies of saying vaguely offensive things on twitter and hanging out adjacent to the football team trying to be let in by sheer proximity, but a gloom hung distantly over it all.

If Gawain had ever afforded a second though to Morholt other than in jest, he may have been pleased, in an egotistical way, to learn that Morholt never truly got over him.

* * *

“So, why is your horse called Morholt 2?” Bedivere asked curiously.

“Don’t ask!” Agravaine rushed to implore him, to no avail.

“Technically it’s not his. The school owns it.” 

The conversation went on as if Mordred had not spoke.

“Well,” Gawain said, looking up from the counter he was cleaning. “After Morholt 1, obviously.”

Bedivere rolled his eyes. “That follows, yes.”

“Congratulations on counting. I didn’t know you could,” Agravaine said, the harshness of this remark somewhat belied by the shyly uncertain tone with which it was delivered.

“Thanks, Aggs,” his brother said with a smirk. “Anyway, Morholt 1 inadvertently provided transportation in the past, so it seemed only right.”

“Wait, wait,” said Mordred, from the table he, as someone not yet old enough to be forced into baristadom, though he could do so legally, was relegated to. “Is that the guy you stole Gringolet from?”

“Dont call it that, you only encourage him,” Agravaine urged hopelessly. When his comment went unremarked upon, he gave up on his attempt to organize the cups and fled to the kitchen, where at least if he was being yelled at by Kay, no one was noticing.

“Yes,” Gawain answered, still looking immeasurably pleased with himself. 

Bedivere stopped what he was doing, with a look of consternation. “Your car is stolen?”

Gawain winced. “Not really. Technically yes, but I assure you no consequences will ever come of it.”

“That’s what you think about everything,” Bedivere pointed out, but let the matter drop.

“Gawain.” Mordred had a look of horrified realization. “Did you sleep with him to get the car?”

The bell dinged over the shop door.

“It’s fine, I replaced the seat covers. Oh, look a customer! Hi, Lancelot! let’s change the subject!”

**Author's Note:**

> this is gonna get retroactively sad and weird in a few days so read it now. dont worryabout it.


End file.
